OneNight Romance
by The Readeemer
Summary: In it, a young man held a woman with a scornful smile, as they grinned playfully through a black-and-white picture at the old man, a painful reminder to a past long gone, and never to be relived."Nick Carraway reminisces on a night at "The Great Gatsby's


**Surprisingly, this account isn't dead. I just thought I might publish some backwater story that came flying out from last year. It was for school. And it's not that crash-hot. But have a read anyway. I'm working on something better than this (audience wise ;) ) currently, so expect it sometime next year. MAUAHAHAH!**

**And I don't own Billy Joel or Great Gatsby. =D**

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_"It's nine o'clock on a Saturday The regular crowd shuffle in_

_There's an old man sitting next to me_

_Making love, to his tonic and gin..."_

The piano croons away in the corner of the Executive Lounge, as an old man buys his drink from the bar. Swaying heavily from liquor he's already consumed, he gropes his way to a seat, next to the piano, and, turning to the piano man...

_"He says, 'Son can you play me a memory?_

_I'm not really sure how it goes_

_But it's sad and its sweet_

_And I knew it complete_

_When I wore a younger man's clothes."_

The piano plays on, and the old man lapses into a memory, a sweet memory, of lights and drinks and dancing all night, a night at the Egg, with the "Great Gatsby".

"_La, la la, di di da..._

_La la, di di da da da"_

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_

I disengaged myself from the company I had been conversing with, smiling as they frolicked back into a sea of lights, faces and dancing. I looked for Jordan, but she was nowhere to be found; her jaunty step had carried her back into the crowd. Here and there, little parties, like the children of this unreasoning celebration sprang forth and dissolved into the surging sea of people.

Then I spied Jordan at the door, talking to some actress from Broadway. Excusing herself from the conversation, she proceeded to the dance floor, and resolving that I would take her hand for a dance before any other man could steal it from me.

I confess, I am not a particularly adept dancer, and while I tried, I could not keep up with her flurry of steps. But the few hectic moments of sheer enjoyment that we'd shared were some of the best I had in my life, and that night we shared something that I cannot call romance, but a tender bond between the two of us that if I still had I would cherish.

By the end of our dancing, we both decided to break off for some refreshments. Jordan invited me to her own group that she had accompanied. There were three married couples there, and Jordan's escort who seemed to be under the impression that Jordan would yield herself to him sooner or later. This irritated me-I confess I spent half the time with her placing myself between him and this object of my curiosity.

After a wasteful half-hour where the group of East Eggers sat at the table chatting inconsequentially and listening to the piano croon about having the time of our lives, Jordan whispered, "Let's get out. This is much too polite for me."

Explaining that she was going to find the host, Gatsby, we left her party, putting me at ease knowing that her escort was safely out of the vicinity. As we steered through crowds of people, arm in arm, we searched together for the elusive Gatsby. He was not at the bar; though crowded as it was no mysterious figure loomed from the shadows to take note of his new neighbour.

I had never met Gatsby, you see, and from what I heard about him he was a killer, a Nazi, and the first cousin to Satan. So I was naturally curious to find out about my neighbour Gatsby, who was the host of this lavish party.

Jordan directed us toward another important looking door, and we wandered through its premises, finding a man with enormous owl-eyed spectacles. Babbling about books and their realism, we decided evidently that this was not our host when he explained he was half-drunk and had been brought by a "Claud Roosevelt". Focusing on Jordan, I noticed that she wore a cheerful alert look on her face, and assumed one myself.

"Did I tell you about the books? They're real! They're re-" he asked. I cut him off swiftly.

"You told us." We shook hands, all the while desperate to relieve ourselves of his company.

We did not find our host, so we returned to the tables and seated ourselves while fishing out glasses from the waiters that floated through the crowds. By the time I'd had two champagne glasses, the scenes of enjoyment had blossomed before my eyes, and the solace of Jordan's company faded in response to the profoundness of the party.

Then the entertainment lulled, and another man at the table turned to me.

"Your face is familiar," he said politely. "Weren't you in the First Division during the war?"

"Why yes. I was in the Twenty-eight Infantry."

"I was in the Sixteenth until June, Nineteen-Eighteen. I knew I'd seen you somewhere before."

He was a polite man, even overly polite and my first impression was that he was attempting to control every word he said. We were discussing a his hydroplane and what time was best for us to try it when Jordan asked, "Having a gay time now?"

"Much better." I replied, then turned back to my new acquaintance. "This is an unusual party for me. I haven't even seen the host. I live over there-" I pointed toward my house, obscured by the lights and many rows of people. "-and this man Gatsby sent over his chauffeur with an invitation."

The man looked at me, blankness across his face.

"I'm Gatsby," he replied.

"What!" I exclaimed; the night could have held no larger a surprise than that. "Oh, I beg your pardon!"

"I thought you knew old sport. I'm afraid I'm not a very good host."

And then a butler appeared to whisk Gatsby to his next call of business and Gatsby was gone.

The night wiled away, and I observed the party dwindle away into nothingness. Wives and husbands fought, and then dragged themselves off through the night, when a sudden source of interest brought me back into the present.

"Miss Baker?" It was Gatsby's butler. "I beg your pardon, but Mr Gatsby would like to speak to you alone."

"With me?" Jordan asked, surprised.

"Yes, madame."

Flashing a look of surprise in my direction, she followed the butler toward the house. Suddenly, the party's vibrancy had disappeared. Instead, all my attention had focussed on Jordan, and I remember musing that she must have learned to walk about golf courses, on clean, crisp mornings.

By this time, it was almost two. The party had descended into infighting between husbands and wives, and women and men engaged each other in intense arguments. A young girl in yellow was playing the piano while a tall, red-haired lady from a famous chorus engaged in alternating rounds of sobbing and singing in a quavering soprano.

"She had a fight with a man who says he's her husband," explained a girl at my elbow.

I examined the woman intently; the tears that ran down her face mixed with her mascara and lined her features black with make-up. Some were humorously suggested she sing the notes on her face, whereupon she threw up her hands and departed ungracefully from the stage, sank into a chair and went off into a deep vinous sleep.

She looked to me as if she had missed a chance of her life with her husband, missed another chance to have a vivacious time during her youth. We watched as four men carried her off in a stretcher, and I imparted the image to my memory as I watched the men take her away.

Then Jordan appeared again, looking flustered and amazed. As her group from the East Egg called her to hurry up and return home, she lingered a moment to talk to me.

"I've just heard the most amazing thing," she whispered. "How long were we in there?"

"Why, about an hour." I stared reproachfully at her, conveying a sense of betrayal that she had left me alone and taken the life of my party with her. A scornful smile again lit her face and it reached her eyes, teasingly implying that I should follow her back to her house.

"It was...simply amazing," she repeated abstractedly, though the subject no longer interested her. "But I swore I wouldn't tell you and here I am..._tantalising _you." She yawned gracefully, and suddenly the invisible sparks were broken, and I wondered whether they'd been there at all.

"Please come and see me...Phone book...under the name of Mrs Sigourney Howard...My aunt." She gave a jaunty salute as she melted into the night.

I was left, dejected, alone and having missed my chance of a lifetime. Suddenly embarrassed by my situation, and feeling like I'd overstayed my welcome at the party, I quickly left the mansion and walked back to my own house. As I walked by I passed the owl-eyed man from the library that seemed to have been involved in a traffic accident.

"Don't ask me," he said as they questioned him about the accident. "I know very little about driving – next to nothing. It happened, and that's all I know."

The crowd gasped, at which point the crowd accused him again.

"If you're a poor driver you oughtn't to try driving at night!"

"But I wasn't even trying!" he explained indignantly. "I wasn't even trying!"

At this, the mob processed this information, then in tandem all gasped. In a flurry of disbelief they questioned the man again.

"Are you trying to kill yourself?"

"Do you want to commit suicide?"

"You're lucky it was just a wheel! A bad driver and not even _try_ing!"

"You don't understand," explained the criminal, for that is what they'd labelled him. "I wasn't driving! There's another man in the car!"

Chuckling at the cued gasps and the drunken attempts by the driver to remove the car from the ditch I proceeded home. I could hear the noises of a dying party-the clamours of a piano that celebrated nothing and the fading laughter of a moment of joyfulness that would only happen once in a lifetime and never occur again.

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The old man watches the piano as it plays, remembering the chances that he'd missed, and the people he would never see again. There had been so many things that he could have done with his life that he would never have been able to do again, so many chances to take that had slipped from his grasp. Never again would the piano play a melody of joyful celebration and laughter for him.

Sighing, he put his hand into pocket and drew out his wallet. On one side the words "Nick Carraway" could be seen, and on the other side was a picture. In it, a young man held a woman with a scornful smile, as they grinned playfully through a black-and-white picture at the old man, a painful reminder to a past long gone, and never to be relived.

_"It's a pretty good crowd for a Saturday_

_And the manager gives me a smile_

'_Cause he knows that it's me_

_They've been comin' to see_

_To forget about life for awhile."_

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_**See? No Beta isn't good. Make sure you Beta. GRR! MUAHAHAH! OVER AND OUT! *Does Cpt. Falcon salute* Hooyah!**


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